How Does Our Body Deal with Cold?

Nobody wants to feel the freezing cold that when Francois Haman invites subjects to his studies about the health benefits of adverse temperatures, he receives a lot of cold treatment, and he does not blame them.

Haman, who studies thermal physiology at the University of Ottawa, Canada, said, "You're not going to attract" a lot of respondents with this kind of study, WIRED reported.

Essentially, the human body is merely worthless or useless at dealing with the cold. Haman even explained, he has done studies where people had any exposure to seven degrees Celsius, which is not even extreme. Meaning, it's not that cold.

A few individuals who are fully dressed in a hat, mitts, socks, and boots, could sustain it for 24 hours, although beyond that, they still could not endure it.

Enduring Cold

People struggle to keep cool or cozy, not shivering, not even sweating, by flattening temperature differences in indoor spaces. It is easy to yell at the speaking "Alexa" speaker to warm up, or reach for a space heater, once a touch of discomfort is felt.

Maybe, one should not tinker so much, though, with the thermostat. Certain reasons for easing up on the heat are evident.

According to a US Energy Information Administration report, approximately 47 percent of American households are burning natural gas for heat, while 36 percent are using electricity, which is in the United States, is still mostly sourced from fossil fuels.

More so, there may be other reasons for embracing the cold, as health factors psychologists, including Haman, said.

Body Reacts with Temperature

Prior to industrialization, such extremes were part of life, according to Haman. Bodies experienced cold in the winter, then heat, during summer, as specified in a similar News AKMI report.

One would keep on going back and forth, then, back and forth again. He added that this, perhaps, added to metabolic health.

Scientists know that the body reacts when it is cold. New fat appears, muscles changes, and the level of comfort increases with extended exposure to cold.

However, what this generally means for the modern-day health of humans, and whether the effects of cold can be harnessed to improve it remain open questions.

Cold-Induced Changes in the Body

A vein of studies is attempting to understand the manner cold-induced changes in the muscle of fat is helping stave off metabolic disorder like diabetes, for one.

Another research proposes it is simpler than one thinks to get comfortable in the cold, minus blasting the heat. To Haman, these are helpful scientific questions since freezing is one of the oldest existential treats of the bodies.

For him, cold is one of the most captivating stimuli since it is possibly the biggest problem humans can encounter.

Even though heat is quite a challenge, as long as there is access to water and shade, said Hanan, "I will survive pretty well." The cold, he added, is the opposite.

Finding out how the bodies are changing in reaction to such a difficult and olden opponent provides hints to how they are working, and how they might work more efficiently.

Related information about health risks in extreme cold is shown on Mayo Clinic's YouTube video below:

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